Mindless Ones

Annocommentations for issue 1 can be found here and here

Interview with Cameron Stewart can be found here

And so we go at it again, better, stronger and much, much, much later than you could ever have imagined.

Onwards with the annocommentations, which, if you’re visiting us for the first time, you should understand as not being much like conventional annotations…

Are you DEK EYE? Find out after the jump!

When you laugh, when you cry, here comes Mickey Eye! AGAIN!!!

(Part 2 of these annocommentations can be found here)

Words that you might have seen used rather a lot elsewhere in relation to this comic:

Mad
Crazy
Insane
Weird

All fine words I grant you, but sadly they all too often help to close down critical discussion rather than open it up. Hopefully we can do a bit better than that.

When you laugh, when you cry, here comes Mickey Eye!

If you don’t know who Marc Singer is then you’ve been doing something wrong. An academic by trade and one of the most rigorous and interesting critical voices to come out of the comics blogosphere, Marc’s writing is often mentioned in the same breath as Joe McCulloch’s (Jog) and Douglas Wolk’s, and has long been a Mindless touchstone.

To the dismay of many Marc took a step back from his blog, I Am NOT the Beast Master, a couple of years ago, but during that time re-focussed his energies into a book length critical overview of Grant Morrison’s work. We’re happy to say that we got an early look at the finished product, Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, and that it’s honestly the best sustained piece of writing on Morrison’s work that you’re likely to find anywhere for some time to come. It’ll be published by University Press of Mississippi in paper back and hardback on the 6th of December just in time for your Christmas stocking.

In the meantime, as a little teaser, here’s Marc being interrogated on the subject of his book by the Faceless Mindless Collective. Don’t pity him too much: He can control animals ‘n’ shit.

Click here to read the rest of this face scorching entry, and to find out who ends up in the Shark Tank!

That’s what I wanted to call Andrew Hickey’s new Seven Soldiers reader, The Miser’s Coat, but he’d only gawn an’ bleedin’ had another idea for the title of his own work first, so. An Incomprehensible Condition should be available from finer internet shops by the time you read this; and he’s only gawn an’ bleedin’ joined the Mindless Ones for his pop-culture critic hat, we’re over the bloody moon to have him, so this interview serves a twofold purpose: to promote and discuss the book and to welcome him to our plated bosom.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are many, many reasons why I might be considered an idiot, but if you were going to make a list – and believe me, I’ve made a few such lists in my time – then I’ve got a fair idea of what the top three should look like.

I’ll spare you numbers one and two for now, but number three is easy. You see, I must be an idiot, because I don’t think I understood mortality until I watched Transformers: The Movie for the first time. Yeah, Transformers, “robots in disguise” that turned into planes and cars and tanks, and had their own crappy TV show. That was where my first intimation of mortality came from. Told you I was an idiot.

The realisation that all of this would one day stop had never sunk in at Sunday School, where the focus was more on old stories than on the possible absence of narrative. It hadn’t made any impression on me when various distant relatives had died – they had seemed like minor characters in my story, and their deaths didn’t truly register with me at the time. It didn’t even really occur to me in the early parts of Transformers: The Movie, despite the fact that whole planets were being destroyed and beloved characters were being gunned down like so many extras (with all weapons having been switched from tickle to mangle between TV series and movie, naturally). But OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME, my favourite toy and childhood hero, dying on-screen, in an astonishingly drawn out manner? Yeah, I felt that, and it scared the living shit out of me.

See, here? One day your sentence will be up. Full stop. Story over. The end.

Don’t worry, we’ll get to Simon Furman in a minute!

For the transcript click here

Here’s a recording of a Grant Morrison interview concerning mainly his new book Supergods.  Bobsy did the interview with small interjections from Gary Lactus.  Here’s the nice picture on the back of the book:

Lovely

Thanks to Grant and the folk at Jonathan Cape for their help in setting up this interview.  Apologies for sound quality.

EXPECT:

Inadequate speakerphone with buzzing!

Intrusive street noise!

Phone line breaking up!

Phone and recording device falling over!

We need to do a transcript which will appear here soon but we thought you might want to hear the whole thing.

Click to download
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Grant-Morrison-Interview.mp3]

If you’re new here you might want to have a look around. We have lots more thoughts on Morrison’s work.

Amy Poodle on the Invisibles for The Comics Journal
Illogical Volume on the Filth
Batman annocommentations (probably quite different from anything you’ve read elsewhere)
Seaguy annocommentations
Amy Poodle on All Star Superman

And that’s just the tip of a very big iceberg.